By Christopher Gillett
The Office of the Registrar has upgraded the class registration system on Penguin Portal. Alongside changing the website’s design and adding new features, it also changed how students register for classes.
The new banner system combines searching, planning, registering, waitlisting and dropping classes onto one site. Under the “Plan Ahead” section, students can make their schedules for future semesters, and use that plan when they register.
Students can also look through the course catalog and semester’s courses, and print or screenshot pages, including a calendar for their week’s schedule of registered classes.
To get to the new site, log in to Penguin Portal, and click “Course Registration”.
The order of priority registration has stayed the same. Students are also still required to see their advisor before registering if they are under 60 credit hours or not in good academic standing. Students can view their “Student Profiles” in Penguin Portal to see where they are standing.
While the class registration site has had many updates, the last time it had an update to the student self-service system was 2008. Then, the university worked over a period of three years, from 2005, to change its website from a homegrown banner system to one provided by the company Ellucian.
Tysa Egleton, the university registrar, said the upgrades to the website were planned and user tested.
“When we were building it, we actually used a student focus group to test a lot of the setup and where we were positioning things, and they had very limited questions. They just kept saying ‘this makes sense, [and] looks easier,’” Egleton said.
Egleton said the feedback for the newest site has been positive.
“We’ve allowed some of our student employees to test it for us and they had no questions. They actually said it was much easier using this system [more] than the last one,” Egleton said.
Egleton also said she understands students may have a hard time with the updates, especially if they were used to the old one.
“If anybody doesn’t adjust to change — maybe that might be a struggle — because it does look different. If you got used to clicking on things and not even paying attention because you just had it memorized, it does have a completely different flow to it. So you do have to pay attention to what you’re clicking,” Egleton said.
Despite that, Egleton said she expects students will adjust to the upgraded website.
“People will adjust easier to it because it’s not a stretch. You’re still registering for classes. You still have to look up those classes and figure out your times, so it’s not like it’s a completely foreign experience,” Egleton said.
If students have any questions or trouble with the new registration website and system, go to the Penguin Service Center on the second floor of Meshel Hall, visit its website or call (330) 941-6000.
